Asthma in Families Facing Out-of-pocket Requirements Due to COVID-19

Summary

In addition to its impact on health, the COVID-19 pandemic led to increased unemployment and loss of employer-sponsored insurance coverage. Obtaining coverage can be challenging and eligibility for public programs and subsidies can be limited, and those who do not qualify can face steep premiums, high-deductibles, and high out-of-pocket costs. Disruptions to employment and insurance coverage during the pandemic threaten to negatively affect asthma care and outcomes.

Our parent project, Asthma in Families Facing Out-of-pocket Requirements with Deductibles (AFFORD), found that patients with asthma may be particularly vulnerable to insurance-related cost barriers and challenges navigating health insurance. Together with the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA), the investigators developed an asthma chat bot to help patients with asthma navigate insurance benefits and optimize health care decisions. The chat bot is an artificial intelligence-enabled interactive online tool that can answer clinical and insurance-related questions and provide information on coverage and how to find lower-cost alternatives for asthma care.

In this supplement to the AFFORD project, the investigators propose a new study to understand and address the insurance and health care cost challenges faced by patients with asthma who lose employer-sponsored coverage due to COVID-19. Our Aims are: 1) to conduct a pilot randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility and acceptability of an insurance navigation intervention, including the chat bot, to help patients with asthma regain coverage after the loss of job-related insurance during the COVID-19 pandemic; and 2) to qualitatively explore the experiences of Aim 1 participants to understand barriers and facilitators to accessing coverage and asthma care more broadly during the COVID-19 pandemic

The study hypothesis is that participants receiving the intervention will be more likely to have coverage after four months and less likely to report non-adherence to asthma medications, delayed/forgone asthma care, and financial burden than those receiving usual care. Findings will provide evidence about the effectiveness of strategies to obtain coverage and maintain access to affordable asthma care and can inform ongoing and future decision making in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health and economic threats.

Conditions

• Asthma

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

insurance navigation

Intervention subjects will be offered access to AAFA's chat bot and navigation services. The chat bot is an artificial intelligence-enabled interactive online tool that can answer clinical and insurance-related questions and provide information on coverage options and how to find lower-cost alternatives for asthma care. Intervention participants will be given a link to access the chat bot. They will also be provided with information about AAFA's insurance navigation program, how it can help with finding coverage and managing asthma costs, and how to access it within AAFA's asthma community platform. Subjects can access AAFA's community platform and join the private group where they can ask questions and share resources, with moderation by AAFA staff. They will be able to send private messages to an AAFA navigator who can provide support about insurance issues, access to asthma care, and assistance with asthma costs. The navigator will offer telephonic follow-up as needed.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute

  collaborator OTHER

• Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America

  collaborator OTHER

• University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

  collaborator OTHER

• Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)

  collaborator OTHER

• Harvard Pilgrim Health Care

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Alison Galbraith, MD, MPH · Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

4 Years

Max Age

64 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2020-12-08

Primary Completion

2021-09-01

Completion

2021-09-01

Countries

• United States

Study Locations